Russell Smith

Satya Nadella’s recent “trust in computing” speech highlighted the need for dependable, secure, trustworthy computing. Let’s look at how Microsoft is slowly building out Windows 10 to provide that trust for enterprises across all types of devices.

Technology gets a bad rap when it doesn’t work as expected, but experience shows it’s not always the tech that’s at fault. Selecting the right tool is crucial if it isn’t to be more hindrance than help.

In September, Microsoft announced native support for USB Audio 2.0 out-of-the-box in Windows 10, and is available starting in Redstone 2 build 14931 for Windows Insiders. This is not the same as USB 2.0, which Windows has supported for years, but a standard for connecting professional, semi-professional, and Hi-Fi audio equipment to computers.

Microsoft recognizes the real power of cloud services, such as Office 365, lies not necessarily in the client apps that we use to access and work with data, but in the ability to tap into data and use analytics and business intelligence (BI) to get insights for making business decisions. Often knowledge workers don’t need complex BI or analytics, but just access to company data that has already been presented in a document so that it can be reused somewhere else. Sounds like it ought to be a simple task, right?

Find out how to enable Modern Authentication in Exchange Online so that 2FA-enabled Office 365 can use Outlook 2013 or later.

Learn how to enable two-factor authentication on a Microsoft Account with the help of Microsoft’s Authenticator mobile app.

Russell Smith describes how to access DSC node reports in Azure Automation DSC using the management portal.

Let’s examine whether there are any features in Windows Server 2016 that might be worth SMEs upgrading to it.

Find out how to synchronize OneDrive for Business using the Next Generation Sync Client in Windows 10.

Learn how to set up billing alerts in Azure to keep your cloud expenses in check.

In today’s Ask the Admin, Russell Smith explains how Shared Access Signatures (SAS) can be used to grant access to objects in storage without revealing the storage account key.

In today’s Ask the Admin, Russell shows you how to apply locks to Azure resources, to prevent accidental deletion or to make them read-only.